


Take My Hand (The Second Time Around Remix)

by MostlyLandscapesSometimesNudes



Category: HMC Fandomverse, Howl no Ugoku Shiro | Howl's Moving Castle, Howl's Moving Castle - All Media Types
Genre: Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, F/M, Introspection, Multi, Please Let Howl Have Nice Thoughts He Is Ancient and Long Suffering, Post-War, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-22 11:48:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7436967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MostlyLandscapesSometimesNudes/pseuds/MostlyLandscapesSometimesNudes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>A waltz. It was the tempo of a waltz.</em>
</p><p>In which Howl spies an unintentionally familiar sight and catches feelings. Sophie understands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take My Hand (The Second Time Around Remix)

The war was ended, and as with the end of any trying thing, festivities were in right order. Market Chipping was abuzz with fervent activity in the afternoon light. But, in truth, things were not all as carefree as they seemed. Ingary was no stranger to war and neither were its people. But with one affair so shortly following another, even the hardiest folk were left in dire straights. It's one thing for fathers to go off to war, but it is another thing entirely for returning fathers to see their sons marching off into same hells. Or fathers not returning at all with sons marching onward anyway. Death was too fresh a thing. War was too personal. No amount of propaganda on its glories or righteousness could convince the public otherwise. 

Not that anyone was trying to be convincing at this point anyhow. No money in the budget.

So in the homecoming of men who left their mothers sides as only boys, there was a certain pensive quality. No overjoyed shouts and hugs with running starts at seeing familiar faces. Instead, gentle gasps of recognition and changed bodies scooped up in soft embraces. It was as though the city were engulfed in a happy funeral. A celebration of surviving life and nostalgic remembrance, sure, but still a funeral, consumed in wordless reverence for those lost and ruined by the close proximity of death.

Still, the spectacle of the affair was not so _terribly_ much afflicted. The town turned out in droves of charitable spirit, the community throwing what little it had to the benefit of the revelry. If anything, the faded streamers and recycled ornaments of wars before served a dual function, drawing attention both to and away from the bomb-disfigured buildings of the city square. Paper stars on broken bricks.

Howl had spent the morning absorbed in letter writing, signature after signature on condolences for mothers who had yet to know their grieving for the sons lost under his command. Given such a task, he was in absolutely no mood for any sort festivities. The obligations of status, however, required that he show his face or risk a fallout with the public conscience. With the trial looming heavily overhead, he would need all the goodness he could get.

Sophie sat across from her doleful husband, observing in equal parts the town's quiet revelries and his progressively despondent look. They'd taken refuge at a little visible corner table outside Cesari's, a point from which they could be seen, but the distance of which would give a passerby pause for consideration before choosing to approach. Social tactics at their finest. 

Few words had been exchanged between the two of them since they'd stepped out of the house. None at all since they'd sat down. In lack of conversation, Sophie was contented to simply sit by her husband and be present for him. Howl appreciated the anchoring gesture, though he had no intention of putting that feeling to words. His eyes wandered the evolving landscape of the festivities without ever turning to her; the knowledge of her presence and the warmth of her radiant aura beside him was enough to keep him grounded.

Generally, he was not displeased by what he observed. Displeased was the wrong word for the inscrutable melancholy that had been lingering with him like a ghost since the stormy night of his return to Kingsbury. It's just that there was little substance to the spectacle. There wasn't any lasting impact to a few balloons and some happy music. Smiles were only temporary. He had seen lasting impact. He knew its consequences. The gala was an illusion, and he had lived far, far too long for illusions to keep captive his attention, no matter how he wished for things to be otherwise. Chin rested on his palm, he continued scanning the merry crowd as though it were a chore simply needing completion. There was little expectation of meaning or reason, so his mood only soured and his expression only bittered.

His eyebrows quirked upwards in pleasant surprise despite himself when his gaze skipped across two familiar figures in the crowd. They were opposite the plaza, but even Howl could see the illuminated faces of Michael Fisher and Martha Hatter. Well, Michael and Martha Fisher. Martha had been terribly eager to take Michael's name upon their marriage, to Sophie and Lettie's indignation. Sophie hyphenated theirs and Lettie never took Suliman's at all. Funny thing, strong women were.

Michael wore his uniform best. Which was one hell an oxymoron, come to think of it. Howl noted his own nearly identical choice of attire for the evening. He hated to wear the uniform, but it would be highly inappropriate of him to wear any of his usual, excessively gaudy wardrobe to such an affair. Besides, he blended in better this way, his distinction as an officer of high rank imperceptible unless inspected closely. 

Michael wasn't particularly fond of the uniform either, but it was very likely the only decent set of clothes he had at the moment. A glance at Martha confirmed the suspicion. Her dress had once been a bespoke beauty, but it was beginning to show a few seasons of wear. The vibrant lilac had even faded to a fatigued mauve. It as a picture Howl had seen before and the memory of it provoked him to shift in his seat to physically dispel the discomfort.

It didn't particularly work.

The feelings of deja vu intensified as they held hands and spoke hushedly to one another, turning deaf ears to the surrounding commotion. Howl was at too great a distance to read their lips, and, honestly, he felt a bit of a voyeur observing their intimacy this way. Yet he was transfixed and could not look anywhere but at them.

The tempo of the music changed. Since when was there music? Had he simply not noticed it in his sullen state? Or could it be there was no music at all? To say he was dreaming wasn't totally out of the question. It could all just be a hallucination from the stresses of wartime. Or head injury. But it was so real. So tangible and vivid a thing. It was a living, breathing, composite image of past and present. Same place, same everything. Only the players were changed.

As though picking up a cue, Michael turned and took both of Martha's hands in his. But the way he took them! It wasn't the tug of an eager and uncertain child. It was assured, strong. And with unhesitating boldness, with confidence of no premeditation, Martha fell comfortably into the sudden, smooth movement and slid to join Michael in a dance.

A _waltz_. It was the tempo of a waltz.

As they tenderly began to turn in time, Howl's breath hitched in his throat. They were aglow. A light had caught up their eyes and their faces had becomes flushed in a radiant happiness. By God, that light...

"Howl?"

Sophie's voice brought him out of his transcended state as he whipped his head around to look at her. _Ah_ , he thought, _my sweet anchor_. Only then did he notice the telling wetness in his eyes before quickly sweeping it away with a brush of his fingers across his face.

"Howl. What are you thinking?" There was the hint of laughter in her question, though that did not detract from the vibrato of concern in her tone.

Turning his eyes back up to the crowd, he could not again catch sight of Michael or Martha. They were lost in the whirling amalgamation of bodies that had flooded the plaza center at the call of the changed music.

"Nothing." A glance away. "Nothing, Sophie."

A laugh played on the lips of his ever-observant wife as she chastised him playfully. "Don't lie. You're smiling like an old man."

"Because I am."

A thousand and one fiery responses flicked to Sophie's tongue like sparks in an instant, but she held them all as she caught sight of what it was that had moved her husband so. Michael and Martha were briefly swept by the waves of the crowd to the plaza edge before tumbling gently back into the sea. It was not the ancient, glowing image that her husband must have seen, but that fraction was enough for her to understand.

She reached out her hand and rested it gently on his. He acknowledged the gesture, placed his other hand on hers, then turned his eyes back to the crowd.

Silence did quite nicely what words could not express.

**Author's Note:**

> It's really nice to take a break and write something cute about HMC instead of the eternal circlejerk of angst that is the Fandomverse.


End file.
